Creating Standards for Responsibly Farmed Salmon

To address the impacts of farmed salmon, WWF helped create the Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue, a multi-stakeholder roundtable led by WWF and managed by a nine-person steering committee. The goals of the Dialogue were to:

Develop and implement verifiable environmental and social performance levels that measurably reduce or eliminate the key impacts of salmon farming and are acceptable to stakeholders

The Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue developed principles that address the key impacts associated with salmon aquaculture, as well as criteria that aim to provide direction on how to reduce each impact. The principles and criteria provide the framework for the indicators, which address how to measure the extent of each impact, and ultimately the final standards.

The standards provide quantitative performance levels that evaluate whether a principle is achieved. To develop these standards, five technical working groups were created to help research the primary issues related to salmon aquaculture: disease, sea lice, benthic impacts, escapes, feed, nutrient pollution, chemical inputs and social impacts.

Two versions (Version 1 and Version 2) of the draft standards document were developed prior to the release of the final standards. Feedback received during the two respective public comment periods was used to revise the document before the standards were finalized. The Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue handed the final standards and the draft audit manual over to the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), on June 13, 2012. The ASC will oversee certification of salmon farms that are in compliance with the standards.